Even in a town as talent-loaded as Memphis, Paul Taylor stands out. As one of the most in-demand session players around, Paul a virtuoso on drums, bass, guitar, keyboards and just about anything else that can be banged, plucked, bowed or strummed is practically his own family band. If good, innovative music is being made in the Mid-South, chances are Paul Taylor is involved (he s not even above a little egg shaker for effect). Taylor s innate ability with a tune almost seems destined given a childhood that included a musician/recording engineer dad who led one of the most popular bands around Memphis, as well as a lifelong relationship, personal and professional, with those North Mississippi Allstars siblings Luther and Cody Dickinson. In fact, much of Paul s musically formative teen years were spent woodshedding with the likes of late guitar legend Shawn Lane as well as Luther and Cody in various creative incarnations, notably the raucous yet high-minded punkish trio DDT, a band that would evolve into the DDT Big Band before settling into the Allstars (Paul even formed a jug band with the boys, Gut Bucket, in which he played washtub bass). In addition, he has put in serious time with the equally seminal Memphis bands Big Ass Truck (featuring Paul s classmate pal Steve Selvidge), and jam banders non-pariel the Gamble Brothers Band. And the credits continue, a resume which extends from Hi Records soul diva Ann Peebles, blues-rock innovator Eric Gales and roots guru Jim Dickinson to Shelby Bryant s genre-bending Cloud Wow Music (for Sonic Youth member Steve Shelley s Smells Like Records label), holding down the drum chair in Bloodthirsty Lovers (the post-Grifters indie rock project by David Shouse), and both playing on and producing the acclaimed gem of a debut by up-and-coming Americana act Amy LaVere, This World Is Not My Home. Add to that his own solo debut, Open/Closed (Makeshift), on which he plays almost every instrument. Called Aching Big Star-informed Memphis pop from wunderkid Paul Taylor, by local indie institution Shangri-la Records, the album, which gets a national release this spring, captures both the spark and studio wizardry of vintage Todd Rundgren as well as the songcraft of classic British Invasion acts such as the Kinks and Beatles. In other words, it s but the latest and, arguably, most rewarding wrinkle in the varied career of Taylor, someone who not only cites influences as disparate as Os Mutantes and Ahmad Jamal, but has the ingenuity, craft and free spirit to match.